Equator Principles: or how I learned to stop worrying and love sustainability

Abstract

The rise of sustainability as a concept in business forces companies to navigate a complex arena of standards and codes. The active and controversial debate regarding ‘what the Equator Principles mean’ for global finance and the projects it funds will undoubtedly continue. In the meantime, they represent an important shift in social and environmental impact assessment (SEIA) by serving as guidance for process-driven project development. This represents a substantial change from SEIA in which the ultimate and end goal was to obtain a permit. The integrated approach of the new Equator Principles, especially requirements for transparency, consultation and feedback mechanisms, provide borrowers with the management guidance needed to convince financers of their due diligence in impact assessment and beyond. This paper looks at the application of the Equator Principles, and the IFC Performance Standards that underpin them, as tools that can be deployed at any level of project development, including existing facilities that may have never completed an SEIA. It assesses elements of monitoring and the ‘art’ of reporting to show how impact assessment practitioners can use the Equator Principles to create concrete indicators that will help to integrate impact assessment results to meet the challenges of sustainability.

Keywords:

• Equator Principles
• social and environmental impact assessment
• sustainability